Six Interruptions
by AdmHawthorne
Summary: Just when the good stuff looks like it might begin, there's always something blocking it... and if it's not one damned thing, it's your mother. Co-written with Googlemouth. Repost. Originally publish on 3/30/2011
1. Chapter 1

**Googlemouth has decided to completely retire. As such, she's taking down her FFN account soon, and she's **  
**allowed me the chance to repost what we worked on together. **

**This was originally publish on 3/30/2011**

**Characters aren't ours. They belong to Tess Gerritsen, Janet Tamaro, Turner Broadcasting, Warner Brothers, and **  
**other assorted important people. I gain nothing from writing these stories but the fun of doing it. Please **  
**don't sue me.**

**This story was co-written with Googlemouth.**

* * *

What did the BCU valedictorian, graduate of Harvard medical school, chief medical examiner of the Boston Police Department, do with her morning when there were no autopsies waiting and all the in-progress paperwork had been finished and filed by ten-thirty?

She created order out of chaos. It was her calling in life. Maura Isles stood at the snack table, organizing. She separated the plastic and wooden stirrers into their own cups, then segregated the sugar packets from the various artificial sweeteners, which she then divided by color – pink in back, then blue, then yellow in front, all with the labels front and the ingredients lists in back. Tea bags, individually wrapped and jumbled together, she filed into their separate slots within the tea box in alphabetical order by brand, then flavor. The growing mound of emptied packets she swept into the recycling bin below; used stirrers went into the trash. Salt, pepper, and cinnamon shakers, she nudged into a row, perfectly even with the box of non-dairy creamer cups, which she also stacked neatly instead of allowing them to remain just as they were dumped in.

And she wasn't even watching what she was doing.

Instead, Maura's eyes kept drifting over towards the homicide bullpen, where the only female homicide detective in the precinct sat doing paperwork. She chewed her pencil, brow creased in concentration, tongue tip protruding. Maura smiled to herself as she lowered her eyes again, but in a moment they were back, studying the jacket that Jane had hung carelessly over the back of her chair, the shirt sleeves she'd pushed up to her elbows. So messy, so casual. So _cool_. Maura had the urge to interrupt her and talk to her, but what would she say?

Wait, Maura did have something to say. A sincere compliment, she'd been taught, was never misplaced. Maura could mention that she appreciated the skillful way that Jane had assessed an initial crime scene, which had led her to asking questions that normally weren't answered by a standard autopsy, which had led to Maura's non-standard check for certain facts, which had led to the conviction of a murderer on what would otherwise have been ruled suicide. The medical examiner paused as she fixed a cup of coffee the way Jane normally took hers – Maura had memorized the coffee orders for everyone in homicide by now – and carried it over as she contemplated the perfect phrasing for the compliment. She often made conversational missteps, and Jane had the habit of not seeing a compliment for what it was, so Maura was particularly careful when speaking to her.

"Jane, I wanted to—" she began, but almost immediately, Jane's phone rang and buzzed on the table beside her.

"Hold a sec, Maura," Jane looked at the screen. "Pop?" She answered, her face full of concern. "Hey, Pop, what's up?" She unconsciously banged her pencil against her desk as she listened. "No, I'm not really interested in helping with that. Come on, you know how I feel about him, Pop." Her face grew colder. "No, I'm not helping him out of anything, and you and Ma better not ask Frankie, either. We're cops. That doesn't mean Tommy gets a free pass. It means he gets what he deserves." The pencil began striking the desk top harder. "Yeah, I know what Ma says, but, I'm sorry, Pop, Ma is _wrong_. I'm not going to help him with that. He got himself into that mess. He can pay the consequences. It's his own fault for screwing up again," the pencil broke. "Ah, damn it! What? No, my pencil broke. Look, I have to get back to work. I'll talk to you later, okay?" With that, Jane set her cell phone back on her desk.

"God, my parents can be so _frustrating_. If Tommy was dumb enough to break his probation, then he deserves what he gets." She glanced down at the now broken pencil on her desk. "And that was my favorite pencil. All the chew marks were exactly where I like them." With a heavy sigh, she turned back to her friend. "I'm sorry, Maura. Family drama early in the morning…. It's almost a double-fisted coffee kind of day." She looked down at the doctor's hands. "Oh, hey… one of those for me?" She smiled brightly at the medical examiner.

Maura set down one of the two coffee cups on Vince Korsak's desk, since she only drank the station house swill in dire circumstances, and handed the other to Jane as she smiled back. She couldn't help it. "Yes," she replied, and as almost always happened, just saying the word 'yes' to Jane conjured up a host of pleasurable images, other questions to which she could give the same answer. "Is Tommy all right?" she wondered, prolonging the conversation by what looked like a fairly easy means as she sat down on the corner of Detective Rizzoli's desk. Her skirt inched up a little. _Oh, good, it works,_ she thought to herself, having bought the skirt two weeks ago in the hope that it would do just that. Nevertheless, her hand snuck to pull it back down halfway to where it had begun. She didn't want to be too overt. It was one thing to show, and another thing entirely to be perceived as doing it on purpose.

Jane's eyes quickly flickered to the doctor's exposed thigh before Maura's hand came into view to fix the skirt. "Who knows?" She took a sip of her coffee, making a face. "He's about as bad as this coffee." She set the coffee down. "God, how long has that been in the pot? Years?" Again, Jane's eyes flickered to the doctor's legs. "I can't touch that." She shook her head, her eyes growing wide. "_Drink_. I can't _drink_ that," she quickly covered. "Want to go with me to go get something decent to drink?"

There it was again, the opportunity to say, "Yes," and Maura did so with her usual alacrity, though she did pause for an extra eyeblink or two to mentally enjoy Jane's Freudian slip. "Let me get my purse and I'll be right back up… unless you'd like to come with me?" Another very subtle phrasing. Maura prided herself on the use of language. Her research into colloquialisms lent her, not expertise, but at least a passing familiarity with certain statements which could be considered suggestive if she used her voice and manipulated her facial expression one way, but entirely above-board if she spoke the same words or phrases in another way. Almost always, she inflected towards innocence when using those phrases.

The only times when she 'made eyes' were when she was saying little or nothing that could conceivably be construed as suggestive. Maura knew she was mixing her signals, but it was important that she do so. If she was overt, Jane would spook, just like her high-strung pony had done when people approached with loud, brash, or forceful demeanor. Jane required, and deserved, subtlety and respect. Maura intended for every little advance to be Jane's doing, so that if it turned out that Jane just wasn't capable of responding to Maura in a romantic way, at least she'd never realize that Maura had been trying to make it happen. Too, Maura had been reared to be a lady, and a lady never actually said what was on her mind when it came to sex or romance. She let others say it for her.

Finally, Maura was honest enough with herself to know that she was just too afraid of looking foolish. There was nothing worse than rejection… except the fact that whoever had rejected her would _know_ that there had been something there to reject in the first place. She really didn't want Jane to look at her as someone in the same category as Dean, Grant, or Jorge, a dodged bullet.

But she could say "come with me," _sans_ inflection, a tiny phrase implanted in Jane's mind. Eventually, all those little phrases would add up, and Jane would find herself considering Maura. Or so Maura hoped.

Jane gave her a shrug. "Yeah," She smiled, almost to herself, as she stood to pull on her jacket. "You know I'll take any excuse to not do paperwork. Going down with you sounds like as good of one as any." She glanced over at Korsak, who was slightly red in the face. "You alright, Korsak?"

"Yeah, I'm great." He swallowed hard.

"Right," the dark-haired brunette gave him a questioning look. "If you say so. Anyway, Maura and I are going out for coffee. Be back in a little bit, so call me if something comes up, okay?"

"Yeah, sure, no problem. You two have fun." Korsak cleared his throat.

Barry Frost waited until the elevator doors had closed on the two women, both smiling with nearly identical smug smiles, before he allowed the bright white grin to split his handsome face. "Oh, man, it's getting' too easy," he told Korsak, who started chuckling. "They couldn't be any more entertaining if they were _tryin'."_

Maura leaned across Jane to press the button for the lowest floor in the building, mentally congratulating herself on the foresight she'd had when dressing. Most days, she tended to wear things that exposed her shoulders and a tiny bit of cleavage, but today she'd thought to wear a striped, elbow-length blouse buttoned all the way up and a clingy cashmere sweater over this, so that only her legs were on display. Jane had seen her chest; it was hard to miss, that night they'd gone undercover at the women's bar. Maura didn't want her getting bored with the same view over and over. Therefore, leaning over wasn't just presenting "tits on a tray," as she'd heard one of her sorority sisters call them several years ago. It was all about posture, spatial relationship, closeness. As good as Maura could be with words, she was far better without them, she knew. Her body didn't babble fascinating but irrelevant information; it said exactly what it needed to say, and no more. If she'd found it at all possible to just not speak in social situations, she reflected, she might have been one of the more popular girls in school.

"Hold the door open for me," she requested lightly as she trotted back into the morgue, snapped up her clutch purse, and trotted back. There'd been no need to hurry, but she kind of liked the way she looked when just a little bit breathless, and hoped the image would stay somewhere within Jane's mind.

_Much good may it do,_ Maura added as they rode the elevator back up and headed out for the coffee shop she liked. It had taken months already, far longer to catch Jane's attention than it had ever taken with anyone else. Maura had been almost ready to give up entirely on the notion that it was even possible for Jane to be attracted to a woman at all, especially given how little interest she'd shown anyone in the lesbian bar while trying to catch a killer there. Disgust, she could have worked with. The majority of times, disgust just meant that the person was either religiously or socially indoctrinated and programmed to display negativity towards same-gender attractions.

But Jane hadn't been disgusted. There hadn't been any distaste at all, just boredom. Not one person in the entire bar had even been worth a raised eyebrow from Jane, not a second glance, not a cleared throat. Maura had felt like crying, but had done what Jane and her fellow detectives called "manning up," and continued her undercover assignment as a waitress, assuming she'd failed in her secondary, unstated objective.

Towards the end of the evening, she had been rewarded for her pains after all when she leaned in to take Jane's drink glass and that of her 'date'. The intention had been to distract the date from realizing that Maura was taking especial care with the date's glass, by inspiring jealousy. The payoff had been when Jane turned towards Maura and had spent an elongated moment with her attention firmly in place on Maura's breasts. _Thank goodness for the pervert who designed that waitressing uniform,_ Maura had thought irreverently at the time. That black and white, polka-dotted corset had lifted, separated, and displayed her upper-body assets beautifully, and Jane had – for a good three or four seconds – been just as exposed. _I've got you now,_ Maura had mentally crowed.

Since then, she'd been stepping up her game considerably. Such as that little trick with leaning over Jane, a physical reminder of that night, despite the fact that she was far more covered today than she'd been at that bar.

Jane glanced down, her eyes flickering over the doctor's form. "So, is that a new skirt?" Jane quickly looked back at the closed elevator doors. "It looks good on you, Maur." She subtly moved closer to the doctor despite the fact they were the only two people in the elevator.

For the third time in under ten minutes, Maura got to say, "Yes." It made her smile, almost as much as the compliment. "I bought it a couple of weeks ago, but it was a little too chilly to wear it until today. It's nice, isn't it? Charcoal grey merino wool and silk blend, and I love the little fan-pleating at the bottom. It's fun, isn't it?" She swirled her hips to make the three inches of fan pleating stand out. "Really soft, too. It feels like wearing a hug." _Touch the fabric, Jane,_ her mind screamed beneath the smooth serenity of her facial expression. _Touch it. Wool-silk blend. Touch it, please. Touch-a touch-a touch-a touch me, I wanna be… Where in the world did I hear that? Oh, right. Senior year of college. Boy, was that an odd night. I still have no idea what the costumes were all about._

"Really? Looks soft." Jane reached down to the hem of the skirt to run her right hand across the fabric. "You're right. That's nice. Not something I would wear, but nice." Her hand lingered, fingers lightly brushing the skin just beneath the skirt's hem. "You know, I've never understood why women wear short skirts and long sleeves. It seems kind of like… I don't know… You're giving mixed signals."

Maura's tendons tightened, muscles locked in place. _She touched me._ No other word-based thought occurred to her for two entire seconds at a stretch, which was a year's worth of normal-people thinking. Then the elevator dinged open on the ground floor, and her body remembered to react and brought the mind with it, stepping out towards the main exit. She led the way towards the street and turned left, towards the really good coffee shop that had her special blend. "I am! That's the point. Well, no. The point is that… Well, look. If I were to come in with a sleeveless, low-cut, high-hemmed, tightly fitting dress, what would people think?"

She paused to let that image sink in, this time intending not that Jane should be aroused, but that she should actually be a bit put off at the idea. "They'd think I was cheap. Easy. An outfit like that would say I'm available for the taking. If I covered up entirely, other than in winter, it would say I'm impossible so don't even try." She turned around in the doorway to the high-end coffee bar to gauge Jane's reaction, under the pretext of fishing in her purse while nudging the door open with her derriere.

"So, what do three-quarter sleeves, a sweater, and a short skirt say?" Jane was smirking, her eyes filled with mirth. "I can tell you now that the outfit you're wearing today screams 'look at my legs'." She intentionally glanced down at Maura's legs, making certain the doctor saw her do so. "I'm sure a lot of men in the department are _very_ happy today." She reached over, helping to pushing the door open, her arm and body very close to the light haired brunette's. "So, which detective are you trying to catch?" Jane's eyes settled on Maura's, waiting for the doctor to step inside.

Maura stayed in the doorway a second too long, so that she wouldn't miss feeling Jane's warmth from an inch away, before stepping up to the barrista and ordering for them both. She needed the extra time to contemplate her answer. "One medium Turkish shot with extra sugar and a dash of cardamom, please. Also, one medium large pumpkin spice latte in a large cup – you'll need the extra room for all the whipped cream I want to see on top. Dash of nutmeg on the cream. Please."

The barrista, a beautiful dreadlocked man whose snappy attire no doubt pleased his boyfriend of the moment, winked and promised they'd be coming right up. Probably because, the moment he'd seen them coming in the door, he'd relayed their usual order to his fellow coffee guru.

The drinks appeared with magical speed, and Maura handed the larger, fluffier one to Jane. Before releasing the warm cup into the detective's hand, she murmured, "I hope this outfit says that I'm impossibly out of reach for most people... but for the right person, I could be attainable." She paused, lowering her voice to a near whisper to add, "Easily."

"Huh," Jane licked the whipped cream from the top of the cup. "That didn't really answer my question, though." She attempted to get a drink of the latte without getting the whipped cream on her nose, failing but not realizing it. "I love this stuff. Is it wrong that I like licking the whipped cream? Nah." She smirked, taking another swipe with her tongue.

"It didn't, did it?" Maura agreed as she set down her coffee on a table that was barely large enough to hold two people's cups and pastries, then gently removed Jane's cup from her hand as well, to set beside her own. Just as her coffee-warmed hand returned to Jane's in an attempt to coax the detective into a seat at the table, her purse started buzzing and blaring out a Salt 'n' Pepa song. _"And where is… the bodyyyy? And where is… the bodyyyy?" _Maura forced her mind to shift gears as she fished inside for her iPhone, which she answered with a terse, "Isles."

Jane smirked. She recognized the song from _To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar_. She and Maura had watched it a couple of weeks before when they'd had a night in instead of going to the Robber for drinks with the boys. The ringtone amused her more now that she'd seen the movie. She sat down, absentmindedly rubbing her nose. "Ah, damn it," she looked at the whipped cream on her fingers. "Maura," she hissed, showing her fingers and pointing to her nose with her clean ones, "Why didn't you tell me I had whipped cream on my face?" She made a face at the doctor as she wiped at her face.

"Thank you. I can be there within twenty minutes," Maura said into her phone, then hung up and looked at Jane. "I'm sorry," she said with genuine regret as well as an undercurrent of irritation, "but they've just found a body. I need to go." Just then, Jane's phone started buzzing as well. "Okay, _we_ need to go. That'll be Cavanaugh. You'll be wanting your own car, I know, so I'll see you there." So much for the skirt, the coffee, and the courage Maura had almost gotten up.


	2. Chapter 2

Maura smiled as she let Jane into her house and took her coat. Movie nights were one of her favorite activities to do with her best friend, now that they had established ground rules. Each of them could pick one movie, and there would be no complaints from the other. If the movies were interrupted by work or anything else, they'd come right back to those same movies the following week, picking up exactly where they'd left off. If they were at Jane's, Maura would feed Bass, then come over for the night; if at Maura's, Jane would just bring Jo Friday with her, because it was easier, and the little dog didn't like being alone overnight.

Jane had promised her an action-comedy, and given that the last few movie nights had featured _Lethal Weapon, Lethal Weapon 2, _and_ Lethal Weapon 3,_ she felt reasonably certain that tonight she would be treated to the final movie in the tetralogy, which Jane promised was the best in the lot.

Normally, Maura's choice of films hovered somewhere between old Hollywood black-and-whites, foreign films with esoteric meanings, and the occasional documentary. Jane didn't really like them, but was a good sport, just as Maura had been a good sport about countless horror films, suspense thrillers, and the occasional comedy that left her completely mystified even as she laughed. This week, Maura had chosen a film recommended by Heidi, a fellow volunteer down at the women's clinic where she fulfilled her obligation to the City of Boston to be a "practicing physician" by giving examinations and care to victims of domestic abuse.

Heidi had described _Bound_ as a caper film, someone trying to get away with something. Maura enjoyed those; among her favorites were _The Great Escape_ and both versions of _The Thomas Crowne Affair_. This film, Heidi had explained as she updated the computer system for the clinic, was all about a thief and a mob moll who were trying to get a mobster's money and then get away from the moll's boyfriend/keeper. Maura agreed it sounded like just the sort of thing she and Jane would both enjoy, and so she took the recommendation.

The DVD player was set up, all but actually inserting Jane's movie and hitting play. She'd chilled the beers and sodas that Jane liked, set out a bowl of baked potato chips next to the tray of carrot and celery sticks, with the ranch dip in between, and made sure there was ample food for Bass and Joe in their bowls. Finally, she'd gotten out of her work attire, showered, and pulled on what she thought of as casual attire: yoga pants, a little ruffled tank top, and fuzzy flip-flops. Just as she was trying to decide whether to pop the popcorn now or wait until Jane indicated interest in it, she heard the distinctive sound of Jane's shave-and-a-haircut knock at the door.

"You're early. Come inside," she greeted her friend, along with a quick head rub for Jo Friday. "Did you already have your walk?"

"Yeah, she did," Jane stepped inside, gliding closer than she needed past the doctor, and accidentally brushing the smaller woman's frame with her own, as Maura failed to step aside. "I figured you wouldn't mind us being a little early. Besides," she hefted her bag back onto her shoulder, "I got tired of waiting to come over." She grinned as she made her way to the guest room to drop off her things. Coming back, she stopped in the kitchen. "Hey, Maur, let's watch your movie first. I don't want to end the night on some sort of foreign something that makes my head hurt." She poked around the cabinets. "Where's the popcorn?"

As Jo trotted towards her bowl to check on the status of water (cool and fresh) and food (canned and of reasonable amount), Maura paused in the kitchen. "Where it always is, but I do have chips and dip for you, if you don't want popcorn in your teeth." She never ate the popcorn. "Also, partly as a surprise for you, my film isn't a foreign one this week. It's American, entirely in English. Well, there might be one or two words of Italian, but I doubt that will be problematic for you. If you'd rather, though, I can certainly go first. I haven't seen this one, but Heidi said it's one of her favorite caper films." She headed for the living room to put her movie in and get it cued up, past the warnings against DVD piracy.

"Yeah? Heidi? That's the les… uh, computer chick at the clinic, right?" Jane trotted over to the couch, plopping down in usual spot but leaning her back against the arm rest and stretching her legs across the seat. "What's the name of the movie, anyway?" She leaned over grabbed a couple of chips, and leaned back, popping on her mouth as she let her feet settle against Maura's upper thigh.

Maura turned off the living room lights, then settled back with a hard pear cider from a local microbrewery, short on bubbles but rich in fruity sweetness. "There's more than one lesbian at the clinic, Jane. I think most of the staff, actually. Heidi's the one who works in internet technology, and she's the one who's updating all the computer and surveillance systems at the clinic," she reminded Jane, "the one with that incredible hair," half shaved off, the other half dyed fuchsia, and a total of thirty-four piercings in her ears, nose, and eyebrow, "plus a new tattoo since my shift last month. She said this was her girlfriend's favorite movie, so she gave it a chance and really liked it, even though it's a little bit gory in the opening sequence."

The doctor's left hand reached out for a celery stick and carrot stick to dip together into the Ranch dip, while her right idly rested atop Jane's feet. "The movie's called _Bound._ Heidi said it was a couple of women outsmarting the mob. I thought it sounded like just your cup of tea, since you regularly outsmart bad guys, too. And for me, it's a caper flick. I like capers. Did you know, the word caper comes from the Latin _caper_ meaning a he-goat. It's cognate with Old English _hæfer_, Old Norse _hafr_, and Old Irish _caera_, which means sheep. So, to caper really means to dance around like a goat does on its high peaks. Completely unrelated to the condiment flower called capers as well, _Capparis spinosa_."

"No, I really had no idea." Jane gave the medical examiner a little push with one of her feet. "Believe it or not, I've actually heard of this movie, and I'm thinking it's not what you think it is, but I'll give it a try." She snorted. "Of course, I'm willing to try just about anything once." She winked at the woman across from her. "I might even do it again if I like it." She gave a full out laugh as Maura gave her a clueless smile, then winced. "Damn head ache. I know what you're going to say, and, no, I didn't take anything because I wanted a beer, and I know how you are about mixing my beer and my pain killers." She rolled her eyes, rubbing at her head where it throbbed.

"Whatever," Maura said as Jane tried to swerve her faulty understanding of the film. She hit 'play' anyway, focusing on the screen with her eyes but not with her mind. _Willing to try just about anything,_ she mentally repeated, then re-repeated. _Oh, Jane Rizzoli, you have no idea how much I wish that were true._ So preoccupied was she that the shorter woman almost missed the mention of Jane's headache, but when it did register, her thumb started pressing into the foot propped against her thigh, working the entire sole from heel to arch to toes in the pattern she remembered from a book on reflexology. Of course, reflexology was a quack science, but at least the massage would feel good to Jane, possibly help with some of the tension that was usually to blame for her headaches, and give Maura an excuse to touch her during the film.

Not that she needed an excuse. Heidi had not exaggerated: the opening scenes _were_ gory. She turned away for a moment and clutched at Jane's feet with both hands, not to help her, but actually disturbed by the mobster's removal of his rival's thumbs with hedge shears. It was one thing to see mutilated bodies, but another to watch a depiction of how they'd gotten that way. "Oh," she said, a bit sickened, "maybe we should switch to your movie instead."

Jane sat up, moving to sit next the smaller woman. "It gets better, sort of." She wrapped an arm around the doctor's shoulders, comforting her. "You always do this during the scary and disturbing parts. I don't know why I even bother sitting at the end of the couch." She resettled making certain her beer was close enough to reach. "Just do what you normally do, and hide during the parts you can't handle. I'll just sit here like I normally do and be your human shield." She slouched a little into the couch cushions. "You know, I figured you'd be desensitized to this kind of thing by now. It's kind of cute that you still have that innocence considering your 'Queen of the Dead' status."

"Thank you? I don't know why it's cute, but – _OH!_" Maura winced as the camera flashed from the clippers near the man's thumb to the blood drops hitting the toilet. She knew very well what she was seeing as opposed to what she wasn't, but the filming was extraordinarily effective, and her mind filled in the gaps with images she'd never hoped to conjure. Quickly she buried her face in her friend's shoulder. "Is it safe?" she asked every so often, until at last it was. She emerged pink in the face from unaccustomed warmed, a little shaky, but visibly better than when she'd first seen the torture scene in progress. "I _hope_ it gets better," she muttered fervently, still huddled against Jane as the scene changed to something a little more palatable. "Why didn't you warn me?"

A few minutes later, the opening torture and murder scene all but forgotten, Maura seemed a great deal more relaxed, though she remained right up against Jane, just in case the scary bits came back.

Which may or may not have been a good idea.

Very gradually, Maura realized that the film was Heidi's girlfriend's favorite for a reason, and it had nothing to do with the caper plot. The lead character's hands were always doing something, always exerting strength, competence, finesse, or… _Oh, my word_, her mind stuttered as Corky and Violet met in the elevator, eyes roaming and promising and all but delivering right there behind Violet's boyfriend. Or, no, not boyfriend. She wasn't a girlfriend, she was the mobster's kept woman. Maura's breathing remained regular and slow, but deepened as she consciously had to control it. _I look at Jane that way. Oh, God, I do. And she's seen this film, which means that she must know why._

"I can't believe that mob guy didn't see some of this coming. I mean, come on, a detective worth half their weight in solved cases could tell what was going on between those two women," Jane muttered as she watched the elevator scene. "This is the reason why mobsters are stupid, and we totally kick ass. If it were me, I'd know that my girlfriend was up to something." She crunched on a chip, pulling her left arm from the back of the sofa and letting it rest across Maura's back, not seeming to notice that she'd made the move. "See that, Maur?" Her dark eyes were glued to the screen, "That's why I became a cop. I can totally beat idiots like that because I'm just _that_ awesome." She smirked, crunching into yet another chip.

Maura nodded agreement, only partially listening in light of the… the… what on earth would one call that? _Eye sex_, she decided, and far hotter than anything she'd seen on her TV screen. "Mmhm," she breathed, entranced, chips and vegetables forgotten, though she did suddenly need a drink from her bottle of pear cider to correct a little dry mouth problem. When the women left the screen, she was disappointed, but also relieved. _I should have watched this film alone first,_ realized the medical examiner. _I don't know if I can watch this with Jane right here._

Fortunately, there were a couple of scenes that didn't contain both Corky and Violet, and Maura started to relax a little more. Maybe that was just a momentary thing and it wouldn't come back.

"I've seen a couple of scenes out this movie. You know, it's not too bad." Jane finished the chips she had and set down her empty beer bottle, resettling with her arm still around the light haired brunette. "You doing okay, Maur?"

Maura's head bobbed, but she remained silent until a bit later, when Caesar called Corky over to fix his drain. Her screen was suddenly filled with Corky's long fingers, short nails, work-rough and heedless of the nastiness found in drains. Again Maura made a face at the dirty water dribbling out from the open pipes, turning away and into Jane without fear, but with just as much distaste as she'd felt earlier when watching (or rather, not watching) the mobster cutting off the other man's thumbs. "I'm fine," she said to forestall more concern, once she felt sure the germiness was over, opening her eyes just in time to see Violet and Corky welded together as they had non-verbally promised in the elevator earlier. Her heartbeat sped up and obscured her hearing; she couldn'teven hear what was being said by the actors, let alone have an accurate idea of how loud her breaths were. Self-consciously, Maura moved away from her friend's side, glance flicking towards the detective. _Maybe she won't notice. I don't know what I was thinking last week, being so brazen. I like having a real friend, a best friend. I can't lose this. Drat this movie anyway, and its lesbians and the drain pipes and the kissing and WHAT THE HELL IS CORKY DOING WITH HER HANDS? And what in the world is wrong with my breathing and heart rate? Don't notice, Jane. Don't notice, don't notice, don't notice._

"Yeah, you're alright," the sarcasm dripped from Jane's words as she grabbed the remote, hit pause, and turned darkened eyes to the doctor. "What? Did I suddenly start to smell or something?" She glanced at the place the doctor had been.

Maura's eyes slammed shut, along with her lips, which had been parted as she attempted unsuccessfully to control her breathing. "Fine," she repeated, "You're fine." _Really, really fine. No, shut up, libido! Friend. Best friend. Jane. Friend Jane. _

"I told you that this movie wasn't what you thought it was. You still want to finish it?" The detective's eyes were dilated, her breathing faster than normal, and she was slightly flushed. "Or, we can watch what I brought. Up to you." Though her voice was calm, almost nonchalant, her body was tense and her eyes pinned the doctor, waiting for a response.

Slowly, Maura opened her eyes. Nothing had changed. The room remained darkened, but for the light shining out of the widescreen television. Nothing had changed, but for the way she was seeing her friend. Nothing had changed, other than the movie frozen in a particularly steamy moment that Maura would have given just about anything to reenact with Jane – _Stop that! _– and Jane looking like… looking like… "No, I want to see it through," Maura sighed in a rush as she gave up all pretense and leaned back towards Jane, one hand and then the other seeking out Jane's, then sliding up her arm towards her neck to draw her closer. Eyes half-closed, lips parted again…

…and Jane's phone came alive with her brother's ringtone.

"I swear to God, one of these days I'm going to kill him," Jane grumbled. "That's the second time he's done that to us… _me_. To me. I need to get it. I'm sorry, Maura." She reluctantly pulled away to answer her phone. "This had better be good." She groaned, standing from the couch. "Seriously? Right now? Right _now_… what? Okay, fine. Yes. I'm at Maura's. I can be there in 20 minutes." She started to gather her things. "No, but you owe me so much, Frankie. You can't even… Ma said what? That I'm _what_ with _who_? You've got to be. No… no, no, no… I'll be there in 20. Bye."

"I've got to. Frankie is pinned at work, and Ma's got something going on that she needs help with that can't wait. I'd ask you to come along, but, frankly, I don't want you to deal with my mother when she's like this." Jane pinched the bridge of her nose, taking a moment to calm down. "No one should have to deal with my mother like this unless you marry into the family. If you do marry into the family, God help you." She swung into her jacket. "Pick this up next week?"

Thoughts swirling, Maura nodded, red-faced. "Okay," she agreed quietly with a smile that was almost, but not entirely, unlike a smile at all. "See you tomorrow at work."

Once Jane had left, Maura fell back against the couch, hands covering her face. She allowed herself to feel horrible for ten minutes, almost to the second, then sat up and began meditating. There was no way she was going to work feeling as unbalanced as she felt right now.


	3. Chapter 3

"Of course, Jane. I'll be there as fast as I can. No, it's okay. Just stay in bed. I'll let myself in."

Maura hung up her phone and climbed out of bed, suppressing a yawn.

What had inspired Jane's latest Hoyt nightmare? Maura pondered the question as she located her shoes, re-brushed her teeth and hair, and pulled a jacket over the boy shorts and camisole she'd worn to bed. Was it the work? Something she'd seen or heard? A witness's recounting of an experience? Whatever it was, Maura didn't want her driving, not in a state of fear and after falling asleep after more than one beer.

They'd both worked so hard lately, such long hours, that there has been little time for movies, dinners, or any other kind of hanging out that they usually did, for almost three weeks. Unease with whatever had been building between them had evaporated as they worked in tandem, barely needing to speak. Maura had been able to suppress her hormones when she was around Jane, thanks to all that work as well as meditation, extra workouts, and a robust sense of emotional discipline.

There had been no sleepovers, either, which helped immeasurably; it was impossible to fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time with Jane just down the hall from her master bedroom, or worse, right next to her in Jane's only bed. Overwork had its uses; neither had had the energy to go out for a drink or dinner after work, so they had simply trudged home to get whatever sleep they could before the next round of bodies. Maura had often wanted people so much it hurt, but when nothing happened, eventually the ache would fade and she would feel normal and in control once more. She didn't like feeling like she had taken some sort of substance, didn't want to be that pathetic, lovesick girl. After nearly a month, it finally felt like she could be her usual self, enjoying once again a friendship that was deep, rich, amazing in all ways, but ultimately platonic. She was over the hurdle; all that remained was, if ever it came up, just apologizing for her momentary aberration and assuring Jane she was really fine, and it wouldn't be happening again.

Grabbing her overnight bag, Maura headed out the door and drove to Jane's place.

Jane was staring up at the ceiling as Maura entered the bedroom. "Thanks. But, you know, you didn't have to drive all the way over here. I just needed to talk. I'll be okay in a little bit." Her eyes never blinked as she spoke. She simply stared into space, not bothering to move to make sure it was, in fact, Maura making their way to her bed.

Having removed her coat and shoes in the living room, all Maura had left was her overnight bag, which she set to one side of Jane's bed before sitting down on it. "I know that's what you said," she agreed as her weight sank the bed and caused Jane to roll slightly towards herself. "I also know that you tend to downplay fears when you know they're irrational, as if the irrationality was an invalidating factor. I came in case talking wasn't all you needed. In case you just didn't want to ask for anything else. I don't want you waking up terrified again tonight, and finding yourself alone."

"I'm never alone." Jane's voice was empty, hallow. She slowly blinked, her hands twitchy involuntarily as they rested on her stomach. "Never."

Puzzlement crept onto Maura's features. "That's not true. You're often alone at home, in the car, walking the dog… Oh, are you speaking metaphorically?"

A humorless chuckle left Jane's throat. "Yeah." She sighed, rolling onto her side and away from her friend.

Maura remained facing Jane, gauging the lanky detective's emotional state by the set of shoulders and body position rather than by facial expression, which was more exact. "I don't understand the metaphor," she said quietly. "Are you pregnant, or are you referring to the Catholic deity?"

"I'm not pregnant, Maura. You have to have sex for that to happen. And, I'm not so sure I believe in the 'Catholic diety', either." Jane rolled over to face Maura, holding one of her hands up between them. "Never alone." She glanced at her hand. "He… Hoyt…_Hoyt is always here, too." _Jane spat the sentence out as she glared at her hands.

Maura's heart went out to Jane, though she hated the phrase as it was inaccurate and logically impossible. "Jane, no," she said with gentle firmness, clasping Jane's hands within hers. "He's gone. He's in prison for three consecutive life terms in a maximum security prison, with no possibility for parole. Hoyt will spend the rest of his life knowing that he failed, and _you won._ You caught him. He's the one who doesn't get to move on." She gave each hand a kiss on the scar, almost like a parent kissing away a boo-boo, and then swept Jane into her embrace. "Come here. It's okay, I've got you."

"What if," Jane allowed the closeness, snuggling closer to the doctor, "he's got another apprentice out there, Maura. What if he escapes?" She curled around her friend, allowing Maura's gentleness to be the permission she needed to let go of her fears. "It's never really going to end, not until one of us is dead." She swallowed, closing her eyes. "Sometimes," she said, barely above a whisper, "I wonder if, maybe, I should just help that along. Things might be better for everyone if I did."

"I forbid you to kill him," replied Maura as she cradled Jane with one arm, stroked the dark hair back from Jane's face with the other hand. "I want him to live a very long life, afraid of what will eventually come for him.

"And I forbid you to hurt yourself, too. You're my best friend. What would I do without you?" Warmth and softness enveloped Jane as Maura held her closely, protectively. "I'm only going to say this once, Jane. Charles Hoyt and his apprentices will not be bothering you anymore."

"You can't be sure of that, Maura. No one can. God only knows how many apprentices he has." Jane sighed heavily. "I won't kill him. I'll try not to hurt myself. I guess," she pulled back to look the doctor in the eyes. "I guess the lonely nights just get to me sometimes, you know?"

It was back. The feeling was back. This time it wasn't a physical need, though, not a rush of hormones spurring Maura to seek sexual consummation. It was simply an emotion. She felt larger than the skin that held her in, more alive, more aware of Jane's needs than of her own. She leaned back, but pulled Jane forward to cover her so that she could still use her hands to sooth tense shoulders, hug away the fear and loneliness, instead of merely supporting her weight. As intimate as the embrace could have seemed to an onlooker, it was yet innocent, its purpose comfort and peace rather than excitement.

Maura nodded understanding as she continued to fingercomb Jane's tangled hair out of her eyes, back from her face, off her neck. "That's why I came," she said with a smile colored by compassion, hazel eyes gone nearly black as, in the darkened room, her pupils enlarged to capture whatever light was afforded by the street lamp outside the half-shuttered, sheer-curtained window. "This isn't going to be one of those nights."

With an almost resigned sigh, Jane placed her head in the crook of Maura's neck. She, again, allowed Maura's comfort and compassion be her key to be vulnerable. For a time, she lay there, simply feeling the gentle reassuring touch the other woman offered. "What if he decides to come after you because he knows how much it would hurt me? I can't promise I won't kill him, Maura. I really can't." She remained where she was, her body tensing. "If he hurts _you_, I really don't know what I'd do. I mean… what would I do without you?"

"He already knows," Maura said, knowing it would not be reassuring in the least until she explained it. "You saw the tapes. He threatened to rape and torture me, just like he did to the bodies of his female victims, while their husbands were tied up and made to watch. He had a specific goal in mind by telling me that. Hoyt said that for you. He knew, or assumed he knew, how close we are the moment he smelled your lavender body wash on me. He wanted _you_ to suffer from my fear and pain, my humiliation. But he hasn't done it, because he can't create a new apprentice. Hoyt will spend the rest of his miserable life in solitary confinement to keep that from happening. He's going to die in prison, Jane. He won't be able to touch us." As she spoke, Maura had begun giving Jane a skilled shoulder and back massage from beneath, soothing the physical manifestations of fear so that Jane could focus on the mental and emotional plane alone.

"Besides," she added with perfect trust, "if Hoyt ever came after me, you'd save me."

"I would try, but I couldn't save so many of them, and I tried. God, Maura, you know how hard we _all_ tried," Jane pulled away, sitting up in the bed. Her voice was quiet, eyes trained on her hands where they rested in her lap. "If he touched you," she said, her voice filling with something almost primal, protective… possessive. "I really would kill him." She looked into the doctor's eyes, her own eyes showing the seriousness of her statement.

Maura sat up as well. "I could only live with that if I or someone else were in immediate danger. Killing in self-defense, or defense of someone else, is justified, but if it's not of immediate need, then it would be murder. I couldn't stand it if you became a murderer for my sake, Jane. You aren't that person." She leaned forward to pull the curtain of hair away from her friend's face and tuck it behind one ear. "I need you to remain… what you are."

Jane sighed, leaning into the touch. "Maura, remember when the sperm donor took you? I went crazy because I couldn't find you. Frost and Korsak had to take my keys away from me, and Cavanaugh threatened to take my piece. The idea that something had happened to you and I wasn't there to stop it… it was just, I couldn't deal with it." Jane's eyes shimmered in the low light. "Without you here, I'm not really me anyway."

When Jane leaned into her touch, Maura's heart rate increased. _This is inappropriate,_ she thought rapidly. _She's just scared._ It wouldn't be right, she knew, to push Jane for more, to ask for anything. Reluctantly, her hand gave one last stroke from Jane's temple down her cheek, then dropped back to the sheets bunched haphazardly about her thighs.

Had she been sitting where Jane was, her face would have been shadowed and hard to read, and she contemplated asking to switch sides. If she did, though, Jane would ask why, and she wouldn't be able to come up with anything but the truth, and if she wanted to share that, she could just remain where she was; her face was illuminated by the street lamp just enough to be entirely readable as it plainly showed the regret she felt as she took her touch away from her friend's face. Not that that was anything new. Her impassivity, so much a part of her that she would have seem amputated without it in most people's eyes, evaporated entirely with Jane. She'd never been anything but an open book to her.

As all those things rushed into her mind, then slowed down and stayed there, Maura realized that she hadn't said anything. _Say something,_ she told herself sternly, but nothing would come. _Say anything._ "I trust you."

"I… I trust you, too." Jane gave a weak smile. "Maura, I know you came over here to help me, but are _you_ okay? All of a sudden, you seem… I don't know, something's off. You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to, but I'm here for you, too, and," Jane's head swung around, "What was that? Was that your phone?"

Annoyance came to Maura, not at the sound of the phone, but at the knowledge that Jane had heard it, too, and therefore she couldn't justify ignoring it. She sighed and slipped out of bed. "Isles."

Korsak's voice was audible even to Jane. _"Hey, Doc. We got us an arson right near your place. Sorry to wake you up, but you're on call."_

"It's fine, we were awake anyway. Jane," she said as she turned back towards her friend still in bed, "we have arson in Brookline. Four bodies, but the family who live there only consists of three."

"_Wait, Jane's over there?"_

Maura was one of the few people that didn't shake her head or gesture to people on the telephone. "No, I'm at her place, but there won't be much traffic, so we'll still get there in timely fashion. I assume you want Jane there, too?"

Korsak paused for a second to indulge in a two-second fantasy.

"Vince?"

"_Yeah. Yeah, Jane too. I'll call Frost."_

Maura hung up the phone and made for her overnight bag as she mentioned, "Good thing I always keep two changes in my valise. I drove over here like this." In her boy shorts and camisole. Before she started dressing, though, she offered Jane a hand up from the bed just so she could be touching her as she said, "And by the way, thank you for asking, but there's nothing wrong, exactly. I'm just a little… open right now. I'll be fine by the time we get to the scene."

The detective nodded before turning to her wardrobe to pull out something to wear. "Sleep's like cake," Jane mumbled as she pulled on a pair of slacks.

"Offered too rarely, interrupted before you're really done with it," Maura agreed.

"No, a lie." Jane grunted as she made her way to the bathroom, stubbing her toe on the way and running a line of curses as she closed the bathroom door.

The day didn't get much better from there.


	4. Chapter 4

"But Jane," Maura wheedled, following the detective all around the bullpen as Jane tried to get actual, useful work done, "it's something I should know. I don't like the idea any more than you do, but what if you need me again, and I can't help?"

"No."

Frankie couldn't resist putting in his two cents; he'd come to deliver the oh, so important message that Jane's presence at gnocchi night was required, as if she didn't already know that. "She's got a point, Janie. You can't just hand somebody a gun and hope for the best. She could shoot herself in the foot, or put an eye out, or something."

"She doesn't even know," Frost realized, "how to load, unload, and clean the weapon."

Maura took heart from all the support, smiling at each of the men in gratitude before she added what she felt would be the coup de grace. "What if you're exhausted again, need sleep, and I'm the only one who's available to watch over you again?" Never would she mention Hoyt by name, but that was on her mind, and she knew Jane would understand what she meant.

"No." Detective Rizzoli was preoccupied with other things, and her best friend was getting really annoying. Maura didn't take the answer, which had been repeated several times already that afternoon, all that well. As Jane turned away from the filing cabinet and nearly smacked right into Maura, her hands clenched into fists. "God, Maura, you scared the crap out of me. Look, I don't want you shooting my gun!"

Maura started to pout, but unlike usual, there was no humor behind it. This was really making her feel bad, and though she wasn't about to cloud up and rain, she did seem hurt. "Jane, what if someone tries to hurt you again?" she pleaded, trying not to whine.

"Doc," Korsak finally offered, "why don't you go back downstairs and let me have a word. I got this." Maura acquiesced reluctantly and headed back for the morgue to either distract herself with online purse shopping, or make a huge list of additional reasons that she should learn to shoot. Her real reason, the most basic one, the one she'd considered so great that Jane could never refuse her, had been rejected out of hand.

Once she had left, Korsak took Jane aside for a little heart to heart. "Look, Janie, what's the problem? The _real_ problem."

"Maura," replied Jane as she hugged a file to her chest. "I don't want to do this to her, Korsak. She's got such a… You know, she didn't want Doyle to kill anyone even to protect her life. I don't want to put a gun in her hands. She hates murder and death. I don't want to give her anything that could make her have to choose to cause someone to die."

Korsak paused; he hadn't actually thought Jane's answer would be that good, that well thought-out. He'd thought that his former partner just didn't want to bother, or didn't want to think about the circumstances that could lead to Maura needing to use a weapon. Still, he thought the Doc was right. She was good people, and if she saw herself as being partly responsible for keeping his Janie safe, he was going to make sure she had the ability when called upon.

Nevertheless, he knew Jane wouldn't allow it for her own benefit. She was like that. So he resorted to playing dirty. "You ever think about the fact that she's a target, too? Doyle's men came and got her. Remember Leahy? He came after her. She didn't have any defense against them. If she had access to a weapon and knew how to use it, she wouldn't have been so vulnerable. And scared."

"She's not vulnerable or scared. That's not who Maura is." Jane stared down her former partner for a long moment. "Maura's strong, Korsak. Don't let me hear you say something else that makes her sound weak. I'll kick your ass for that." She leaned against the wall they were standing near. "She's strong, and I'm making her sound weak by telling her no. God," she pushed off the wall, "I have to go, Korsak."

"Okay, want me to cover for you?" He stepped aside to let her leave.

"Yeah, would you? Call me if something comes up and you need me, okay?" She headed toward the elevator, nodding her acknowledgment as Korsak quickly agreed.

As Jane entered the morgue, her eyes fell on the chief medical examiner where she sat at her computer, staring intently at the screen. She quietly walked over, stopping just behind the doctor. "You're not weak, and I need to stop treating you like you are. You're the strongest person I know." She paused, taking in a breath. "I'll teach you."

Maura had been so absorbed that she didn't even hear Jane enter, but once the footfalls were two steps behind her, she quickly closed the screen on her laptop and turned around to throw her arms around Jane's waist. There was no happy squeal or triumphant, smug smile this time, just a tight hug. "Thank you," she whispered fervently in her relief.

That was why, at six thirty that evening, they were standing in a booth at one of the local firing ranges. Maura had proven knowledgeable about firearms, having researched the technical specifications of every weapon Jane owned or used as well as a few others that were common among members of the force. She had even watched some videos on how to take them apart, clean them, and put them back together. Maura was a good student.

Though she had none of the ease that would come to her hands with practice, at least her mind was in the correct place for understanding and respecting the weapons. She had asked several questions before even touching the gun that Jane had offered for the lesson, but when she did, she seemed to understand it, at least intellectually. There was a little clumsiness as Maura attempted to load and unload the piece several times, but that would get easier.

"The kickback is a lot more than you think it's going to be with most guns. We're starting with a .22 because it's small, light, and doesn't have the kick most do. If you decide to buy one, I'm thinking this is the caliber we'll get for you. Now, hold it like I taught you and aim down the sights." Jane stood behind the doctor, looking over her shoulder, down her straightened arms, and through the sight. "Don't tense up. Try to stay loose. If you tense, it'll mess up your shot." She was inches from the back of the light haired blonde, hands hovering to correct as needed. "Take all the time you need to line your shot up. Don't pull the trigger until you're ready. Be absolutely certain that's the shot you want to take."

It took several moments for Maura to relax her shoulders and arms, choose which eye to aim from, relax again. It seemed her natural stance was a tense one, but she made every effort to loosen her muscles. Jane's close proximity hindered that process, but she did her best, and eventually her finger pulled back slowly on the trigger. The loud bang made her tense up again, and along with the kickback – small but apparently working in concert with her surprise to send the shot wildly off course. Instead of a heart shot, the bullet tore through the paper target just outside the torso. "Oh! Well, that was… on the paper, at least," she said with disappointment and a little embarrassment. Though it was irrational, she'd hoped that she'd be a natural, and that Jane would be impressed. "I suppose it can only get better… right?"

Instead of chuckling as she normally would have, the detective was thought for a moment. Placing her hands on Maura's arms, she began to guide her friend. "That was good, but try it again. I'm going to help, okay?" She stepped closer, her body pressing against the doctor's. "Now," she spoke gently, conscious she was so close to Maura's ear. "Aim again. Shoot when you're ready. I'm going to keep my hands here on your arms. Think of me as a… spotter. Okay?"

Maura's body tensed, then relaxed almost too much. _I should have worn longer sleeves,_ she thought with rueful embarrassment as her skin became goosebumped from the sudden excess of stimulation from having Jane against almost her entire length, and that raspy voice in her ear, sounding warm and personal. _Wishful thinking._ "Okay," she said aloud, once she realized she hadn't answered yet. _I hope I smell okay._ She always showered after work with a lemon-scented soap and shampoo to rid her skin and hair of the scents of formaldehyde and corpse, but never quite felt secure as to whether others could still smell it. Maybe she was just inured to the smells of her job.

_Focus._

Long practiced at mental discipline, Maura soon corralled her thought processes and subdued them to her will. She pulled the trigger one more time. This time, forewarned, the report did not startle her, nor did the kickback. She hit the target within the human figure's outline this time, in the upper shoulder. "Better," she acknowledged aloud, or tried; it took a throat clearing and repetition before she was sure she'd been understood.

This time, Jane did chuckle. She pulled her hands away and stepped to the side. She nodded to the gun. "Put the safety on, and unload it, okay?" She stood, waiting. Once the gun was safely set down, she addressed the doctor, concern overshadowing the amusement that had come from her chuckle. "Yeah, that was a lot better. But, you still seem pretty tense. You sure you're okay with learning about this? You seem distracted and, with guns, distracted isn't okay. I don't want to try to teach you about something like this if you're mind isn't fully here. It's too dangerous. Maura, if there's something bothering you enough to distract you like this, I wish you'd tell me. You're normally really… focused."

Maura surreptitiously viewed Jane from beneath lowered lashes. "You're right," she admitted, setting down the gun with care at the center of the half-door table. The doctor remained facing forward, only turning her head partially away from the target. "I'm distracted. However, if I ever really need this skill, it won't be because I have a moment to relax, clear my mind, breath, focus, and aim. I need to learn to do this no matter how I'm feeling."

"It's like anything else, Maura. In order for you to be good at it under pressure, you have to be able to do the motion naturally, to make it a part of you. You can only do that if you practice. You have to become so good with the weapon that using it is second nature and all the things that you're having to think about right now, you won't have to think about if the time comes. The hope is that the time will _never_ come.

"Maura," Jane placed a hand on the doctor's shoulder, turning her so they faced each other. "If it were up to me, I'd keep you from ever even _thinking_ you might need to shoot someone. But, I know better, and this isn't a perfect world. So, I'm teaching you. But, I can't teach you if you're not honest with me. This," she pointed to the weapon on the table, "is too dangerous. I won't teach you if you're not all here. I won't be the reason something awful happens because you had an accident that could have been avoided if you'd just trained like you're supposed to. Do you understand?"

Then Maura did turn away from the table, but her head remained bowed for a long moment as she twisted the ring on her middle finger. "I do understand," she replied quietly, "and I can do my job with you there because I'm already at that level of knowledge and experience, but this… This is new, and I don't know if I can concentrate well enough on it. On the things that should be holding my attention, but aren't."

"Maura, what _is_ holding your attention?" Jane crossed her arms, fingers twitching with irritation. Her eyes held something in them, as if she knew the answer and was simply waiting for confirmation.

Pursed lips, as every detective learns at some point in his or her career, are a sign of mental editing, speech being altered before it can come out. Maura's lips pursed for several seconds before she finally replied, "_Cutis anserina_. My pilomotor reflex is fairly well developed, and I'm experiencing horripilation due to dermal sensitivity to certain external stimuli which stem directly from interpersonal spatial orientation and my hyperawareness thereof." _There, _she thought triumphantly. _Precise truth is its own shield._

Jane stood, arms still crossed, as she processed what the doctor said. Long periods spent with Maura had increased the detective's vocabulary, but she found she could have used a dictionary as she tried to piece together what she was being told. Finally, a light bulb went off, and her eyes widened slightly. "Maura, are you telling me that –" she was cut off by the voice of her partner.

"Jane? Maura? How's the training going?" Frost stepped in, smiling a greeting to both women.

The two women stepped apart quickly, and Maura put on a bright smile to greet Frost. "Barry, what a nice surprise. Did you come for practice, too?" One could almost not even see the guilt flashing across her features, as if she was a teenager caught screwing on the couch.

Frost looked between the two, realizing too late that he'd interrupted something. "Oh, yeah, you know," he shifted uncomfortably, "got to keep up my practice. Don't want to get rusty." His smile was tense, eyes shifting to Jane's dour expression.

"Yeah, well, I think we're done here for tonight." Jane picked the weapon up to secure it. "Ready, Maura?" She growled as she began putting things away.

At that point, Maura couldn't hide her disappointment. Nevertheless, Jane beckoned, and Maura nodded. "Okay," came her soft response. "Lovely to run into you, Barry. I guess I'll see you tomorrow." She would just have to coax Jane to help her again at another time. At least now she knew how to get a .22 ready for firing practice; perhaps she could practice on her own another time, if she couldn't coax Jane back out to the range.


	5. Chapter 5

Maura," Jane rushed into the morgue with a magazine in one hand, her cell in the other, and a look of sheer panic on her face, "I need your help." She stopped abruptly beside the medical examiner, who was currently elbow deep in her work. "I'm supposed to have a date tonight, and Ma found out about." She groaned, rolling her eyes, and choosing to ignore the body on the table. "She's been at my desk for an hour now with all these magazines," the detective held up an issue of Vogue, "telling me all this... this _crap_ that I should and shouldn't do.

"I swear to God, Maur, I'm going to kill her! Please help me get ready for this thing. He's only going to be in town for one night, and I just want to go out with him. I mean, it's not even anything serious. It's just one date, and Ma's acting like I'm about to get married." In an agitated gesture, she put her phone away in the holster on her belt. "I need a dress, but there's no way I'm talking to Ma. Please, Maura, please go with me to pick this thing out." Jane was practically on bended knee as she pleaded for help.

Maura's hands paused as she understood what was being asked of her, then resumed her work on the elderly Asian man with the peppering of gun shot wounds about his back. "Mmhm," she said at salient points just to show she was listening without adding any enthusiasm at all. "I should be finished with Mr. Satsuma in about an hour and a half. After I shower, we can go to… Well, actually, that depends on where you're going and how you'd like to look. Are you sure your little black dress won't be appropriate for the occasion?" Never let it be said that she'd ever refused Jane anything. _Sure, Jane, I'll help you pick out something to wear out with some guy._

Panic subsiding slowly, the dark haired brunette let out a sigh of relief. "No, that's too... I don't know. Too _somethin'_. It's Grant. He's in for one day, and he asked me out. I told him yes because, well, you know. Anyway, nothing's really going to happen here. I mean, he's in DC and I'm here, and I don't really... look," she tossed the magazine on the counter near her. "I just want to look nice, but he's already seen the black dress. So, I have to get something else. We're going to that French place. You know, the one you and I went to a couple of weeks ago."

Maura's lips tightened as a cold knot formed in her abdomen. "I remember." Yet another missed opportunity, that restaurant. The wine was superb, the meal savory and not too filling, the music and lighting conducive to… things that had never happened because Maura had left the table to freshen her lip gloss and wound up hyperventilating in the bathroom for ten minutes just from the contemplation of finally taking that risk. Joe Grant was going to take Jane there? Maura decided she might hate him a little bit.

Jane began to pace around the area near where the medical examiner was working. "Besides, I don't want to wear anything that says, 'Do me now', and that black dress... yeah." She shook her head. "In fact, I don't want to do him at all. I just want to catch up. But, I want to look good doing it. Make sense?" She stopped pacing to throw a pleading look at her friend.

If necessary, she would certainly do anything Jane asked, but she didn't have to like it, and she didn't have to do it unless there were no alternatives. Was she really going to have to help Jane pick out the right outfit for _Joe Grant?_ "Why not the blue dress that you wore to the Fairfields' memorial dinner?" Maura suggested, knowing that that dress was attractive enough to say _I'm out of your reach_ rather than _Ask and ye shall receive._ Maybe Jane wouldn't realize she was subtly sending messages that would quell Joe's rather obvious goals.

"No, I don't think that would work." Jane chewed at the corner of her thumbnail as she thought about it. "I think that'd make him feel uncomfortable. It's a little _too_ high class." Giving a heavy sigh, the detective resumed her pacing. "You know, I don't even know why I said yes. I'm really not into him like that. Oh, no, wait, I know why," the sarcasm was thick as she continued, "he went to see Ma first." She stopped. "That bastard set up me, Maura!" The dawning realization, and subsequent anger, began to fill Jane's features, which pleased Maura as she caught a look at the detective's face on one of her pacings around the autopsy table. "He knew that if he saw Ma that I would say yes if he asked me out just to keep her from nagging me. Ugh!" She stomped her foot and slammed one fist into the other palm. "I can't believe I fell into that trap!

"Okay," she waved her hands in the air as if she was erasing some unseen chalkboard. "New plan. Maura, you have to help me figure out a way to get out of this thing. I can't tell him it's work related because he'll know if I'm lying about that. I can't tell him I have another date because _Ma_ will know I'm lying. Damn it," she banged a fist against the front the cabinet she had stopped by. "Now I want to get all sexed up, go out with him, let him see what he's _never getting_, and then chew his ass out for being such a... a... a manipulative rat bastard. See? I told you he was a weasel."

Suppressing a giggle of sheer delight, Maura once again resumed her stitching of the body, pleased as punch now that it seemed as though Jane was thinking clearly. It might not be great for her to be looking as good as Maura knew she could look when facing Joe Grant over a candlelit table at _Claudette's_, but at least her intention now was in the right place. "If that's what you really want, I'll help you pick something right after work and a shower. Now, go on upstairs and finish _your_ workday, because you're very distracting and I'd like to finish in a timely fashion."

"Oh man, Maura, you're the best," Jane reached over to give the honey blonde a quick hug. But, realizing the awkwardness given what the medical examiner was currently doing, she gave a quick peck on the cheek before hurrying out of the morgue.

* * *

"No, it's not too bright," Maura argued as she shoved a brilliant cranberry dress back over the fitting room door for the third time. "Jane, you asked for my help and advice, so try taking it." Six dresses lined the rejected dresses rack; three more possibilities waited their turn at being tried and, if history was any indicator, rejected as quickly as the first six, with just as little justification. Maura was frustrated. Jane had refused all the others so far without even exiting the dressing room and showing Maura how they looked on her, thus negating one of the most fun parts of shopping with a friend. _"Put on the damned dress, Jane,"_ she ordered with the ring of finality, "and this time come out so I can see it."

From behind the dressing room door, Jane's gasp was audible. "Did you just say 'damned'? Oh my God, I can't believe it. I just made you curse. Okay, okay, just... just give me a few seconds to get this thing on." Rustling could be heard as the detective moved about. "Man, this is... huh," she opened the door to reveal her slender form clad in the cranberry dress. "I think this might beat the black one. What do you think?" She stood, one hand on her hip, the other gesturing toward herself, and a smirk playing across her features.

Irritation flashed in Maura's eyes as she awaited Jane's emergence, but it all went up in smoke at the sight of the dress on Jane. Rich cranberry color highlighted the woman's strong Mediterranean skin tones and contrasted brilliantly with her dark hair. The cut accentuated a femininity that most people believed Jane didn't even possess, drawing attention to long legs, toned arms, and the precious curves that Jane hid so effectively most of the time. Maura was speechless. A really lovely woman two doors down emerged in the same dress, looked in the three-way mirror, looked at Jane, and disappeared back into her dressing room, muttering obscenities.

"Maura?" Jane's eye flashed with concern when her friend didn't say a word. Worried that Maura was angry with her, she stepped forward, placing a hand tentatively on the smaller woman's upper arm. "Hey, I don't mean to be so difficult. It's just that," her eyes were full of apology, "I'm not comfortable in this kind of thing, you know? I don't wear dresses, and I don't really feel like myself in them. Maur, I'm really sorry. Please don't be mad." Her grip tightened slightly as she waited for a response.

Maura closed her eyes even before she placed her hand over Jane's. She shook her head, pressed her lips together between her teeth, and eventually whispered, "I'm not mad. It's not that." Her eyes opened when Maura thought she could look at Jane without having her every thought read by her best friend. "Jane, this dress is everything you should have in a dress. This is perfect on you. Breathtaking, actually," she added as a little color blushed her cheeks. "But if you really meant it when you said you wanted to turn down Joe Grant, this is not the dress to wear. If you wear this dress, he's not going to let you go."

"I did. He's an ass." Jane paused for a beat before her voice shifted into something darker, more sultry. "Maybe I could wear it with you some place? I like the dress, Maura. But there's only one person I can think of that I wouldn't mind not wanting to let go. Grant isn't it."

_That voice, that voice! I love when it goes lower and even huskier. I love it when she looks at my lips. Is that on purpose? Oh, Jane, if you ever wear that somewhere with me, for me, I won't be responsible for my actions._ Then Maura's mind lurched uncomfortably towards the next idea. For whom else would Jane wear that dress? "Anyone I know?" she asked with would-be lightness, and congratulated herself on what she thought was excellently-mimicked nonchalance.

Voice still husky, still quiet, the taller simply responded, "Yes."

_I hate him_. Maura was shocked at the vehemence of her fist-shaped thoughts, but this time was almost entirely successful at keeping them off her face and out of her vocal intonation. "Then you should get this dress and wear it for them. But perhaps a different one for Joe Grant, if you really feel the need to go through with this date." Only the slightest tightening of her hand on Jane's gave her away as she rose to the occasion, saying the right thing for her best friend. _I may not be able to do much for her, but I can at least let her go even while she's wearing that dress._

Jane's face tightened. "Tell you what," her voice was still low despite her attempts to be light. "Why don't I get this dress and then _you_ and I can go to the Dolce Vita Friday night after work?" She smiled, but it wasn't the reassuring smile she normally gave the smaller woman. It was a smile laced with an unspoken promise. "Would you like that?"

_Of all the times when it would be desirable to know how to lie,_ Maura thought with resentment towards her own sense of honesty, _this would have to be very near the top of the list._ "Yes, I would," she had no choice but to say, "but don't you think you should wear it for…" Her eyes widened as, belatedly, she took in the cues she'd been seeing but dismissing for so long, assuming Jane didn't even know she was sending them. "Oh. _Oh._ Oh, Jane."

When had she stepped closer? When had she dropped her purse by her feet, slid her hands up Jane's bared arms towards the neck? When had she tilted backwards, subtle universal sign of willingness? Maura didn't know. She had perceived her own behavior too late to change it, if she was wrong about the assumptions she had just made: she was exposed. Jane wouldn't miss this, no matter how much she tried. _To hell with it,_ Maura thought, _now we'll _both_ have to be honest._

Jane's eyes trailed to Maura's lips as her arms wrapped around the smaller woman's waist. "Maura, I..."

"What's going on here?" Jane flinched; Maura jumped a little as she stepped back. By now, they'd both recognize that voice anywhere. "Jane? Maura? What are you doing?" Angela Rizzoli stepped into the dressing room, her large, oversized purse draped over her arm and a bag from a store near by clutched in the opposite hand. Jane quickly stepped back, but left one hand at the small of Maura's back. "Oh, is that the dress?" Angela was clearly distracted from the scene she'd walked in on by what her daughter was wearing. "That's _beautiful_. Janie, that boy won't know what hit him!"

_Not again,_ Maura's mind moaned, though all she permitted herself was a fatalistic sigh.

"I'm not wearing this for Grant." Jane's voice was full of anger and warning. "I think I'm just going to wear something I have."

"What? Why?" Angela made her way to the two women. "This is perfect for a date!"

"Yeah, I know, and I'm not going out on a date with Grant. He's my _friend_, Ma. I'm going to go catch up. That's it. He's only in for a day. This date thing was all your idea anyway." She reluctantly pulled her hand away from Maura. "I'm going to go change," looked back at the honey brunette, she made certain the gaze was returned before she left to go back into the fitting room, "Don't go away, okay?"

Maura nodded assent to the order/request as she stood up from picking up her fallen purse. She remained quiet, hoping to escape notice, but her luck maintained the same dismal level she'd been having for a while now. _Oh, well, perhaps I can serve as a distraction. Maybe if Angela focuses on me, she'll stop hounding Jane._

"Not a date? But, Jane!" Angela's voice was irritated, her posture tense. "Honestly, I don't know what's gotten into her lately," she turned to Maura. "It's like, no matter what guy it is, he's never good enough. Maura, you're her best friend. What kind of person do you think Jane's looking for? I'm at my wit's end!"

Maura's head shook noncommittally. "I don't know, Mrs. Rizzoli. I suppose someone with whom she shares values and goals. Someone who understands that her work, her strenuous pursuit of justice, defines a large part of who Jane is, and it shouldn't be taken away from her. I don't know that she's actively looking for someone, of course, but should she happen upon someone, those things would be important to her. Well, that, and of course a strong physical connection. I can't see anyone being happy in a relationship that had little or no sexual chemistry, can you?" _There, that should not only answer Angela's questions, but shut her down. Mothers don't like talking about their daughters sex lives, right? _"In fact, in some cultures, a couple are strongly discouraged from marrying until they've had a great deal of satisfactory sexual experience with one another. It discourages hasty, loveless marriages."

"God forbid," the older woman rolled her eyes. "I'd like to think Jane's waiting until she finds the right guy." She held up a hand to stop Maura from commenting, which was good, because Maura had been about to correct Angela. "Just let a mother have her moment of denial, okay?" Angela let out a puff of air. "What's taking her so long in there?" Then, she seemed to remember something. "Oh, Maura, what was going on when I got here? Jane told me you two would be here. So, I thought I'd swing by and see how things were going, but what things _were_ going?" Her face held nothing but curiosity at the earlier scene and impatience for her daughter.

"Girl time," Maura replied almost, but not quite, instantly. She'd heard some other shoppers using the phrase and thought it sounded like a reasonable explanation that would tell Angela what she wanted to hear.

"Girl time?" Jane stepped out, the dress in hand. "Interesting," she raised an eyebrow. "Okay, Maura, you ready? Ma, we're going to go. I'll see tomorrow night for dinner?" Maura nodded confirmation.

"Wait, I thought you just said you weren't going to buy that dress?" Angela was clearly confused, looking to Maura for answers, but the medical examiner gave none.

"No, I said I wasn't going on a date with Grant. I'm buying the dress for a different night."

"A date?" her mother was practically dancing with the exciting prospect of her daughter going on a real date. Maura's excitement was equally palpable, though she restrained herself from clapping and squealing like a little kid on her birthday.

"You could say that. I'm going to be late with my meet up with Grant if we don't go. I'll see you later, okay?" Jane tugged on Maura's arm. "Was there a pair of shoes you thought would go well with this, or is there a pair I could borrow from you? We have about 15 minutes until I _have_ to go home and get ready meet Grant." She glanced at her mother before pulling Maura away toward the register.

Maura let herself be led. "I saw a pair in Chanel that would be very appropriate with that dress if you'd like to go and try them, but we can do that another time. Tonight, you have a friendly get-together to get ready for. Though, I could probably help you with that and shave a little time off of your preparations for you." _Let me put on your makeup. Let me brush your hair. Need some help with your lotion? You look tense; let me rub your shoulders. _Abruptly, Maura realized where her thoughts were going, and shut them down harshly enough that she couldn't stop the frown from creasing her brow. _Hush, Maura, you're thinking like a sixteen year old._

"You really want to help? Call me about 15 minutes in and tell me you need me so I can leave," Jane answered as she pulled her wallet from her back pocket to pay for the dress.

Maura smiled. She could do that.

* * *

Joe Grant had been smooth, give him that. He'd taken Jane's elbow to kiss her hello, then remained smiling despite having his kissing trajectory deflected from lips to cheek. His hand rested at the small of her back on their way to their reserved table. He had held out her chair. Apparently he had also done his homework, because he already knew the restaurant's menu and recommended either the dinner omelette, spinach soufflé, or the steak. Joe had even taken the trouble to learn about the wine selection, and ordered a bottle for the table. When the waiter came, Joe ordered for them both. He was certainly on his best Sunday behavior.

"So, Janie, how've you been? Seein' anybody?" he wanted to know, with the air of just making small talk while waiting for their water glasses to be filled.

Jane took a sip of her wine as a stall tactic. "Not really, but I've got my eye on someone. You?" Her eyes held a small amount of amusement as she waited for a response.

"Me too," Joe replied, the answer having given him some hope. He leaned forward. "Somebody I've known for a while now, but she keeps shuttin' me down. But you know me, Janie, I'm an optimist." His hand slid across the table and onto Jane's, the movement pushing up his sleeve to reveal a little of that dark, crinkly hair that fringed his wrist beneath the French-cuffed shirt.

Jane's ridiculous, impractical, but (according to Maura) dressy enough purse started playing the Funeral March.

"Let it go," Joe coaxed persuasively. "I know you're not on call tonight."

With a air of obvious irritation directed toward Grant, Jane replied, "I don't ignore Maura. She never calls me unless it's something important." Pulling her had away, she opened her purse and pulled out the phone. "Maura?"

Maura's hopeful smile was audible in her voice. "You said I should call you about fifteen minutes into your date. I hope I timed it correctly." Her soft, flirty voice came down the line with just enough insinuation to make people wonder, as usual, whether there was something to her statement that they were just barely missing. "Well, you asked me to call you and say I needed you." Momentary silence invited Jane to remember the earlier conversation, but she said nothing. Maura took a deep breath. "Therefore I'm calling to say… I need you, Jane."

Jane audibly swallowed, her face blushing. "I... uh, I understand. I'll be there soon. I have to make a stop first to pick up a few things." Again, she glanced over at Grant, this time she made a faux apologetic face. He made another face back, assuming that the apology was for taking the phone call at all. He even called a waiter to refill their glasses, confident that shortly their date would resume so he could begin wooing Jane Rizzoli in earnest. "Is there anything I should... be prepared for?"

_Now or never,_ Maura thought, then immediately chastised herself. 'Never' wasn't realistic. Still, she felt an urgency that suggested that now was the right time. Jane was with Joe Grant. He could be charming; he and Jane had a history stretching back to childhood; they'd kissed, and then he'd left. What if Jane viewed him as the one that got away? What if, right now, Jane was planning on calling off the plan she'd made with Maura? What if she walked into work the next day with extra swagger in her step, extra rasp in her voice, a tired and satisfied smile? No, it really _was_ now or never. Maura's nervousness ratcheted upward. "N-nothing specific. I just need – _want_ you to come over and be with me. If you wouldn't mind."

Voice going deeper, eyes darkening, Jane responded, "I don't. I'll be there in a few." She hung up, dropped her phone in her purse, and stood. "I have to go. Maura needs me, and it's not something that can wait. It was great seeing you again. We should do it again sometime," she raised an eyebrow, an eyeroll threatening her features as she headed out of the restaurant.

"What the hell just happened?" Joe asked no one, aloud, as the waiter came to deposit two steaks on the table.


	6. Chapter 6

Standing outside Maura's door, overnight bag in her hand, Jane made a mental checklist. She had dropped Joe off at her parents telling them she was going to be busy for at least the rest of tonight and probably tomorrow, so they shouldn't bother to call her for anything. On the way over, she'd called Frankie, Frost, and Korsak to threaten them within an inch of their lives should they decide to call her or come looking for her. She'd stopped at a local boutique, called the owner, who owed her a favor, and purchased a pair of heels that, remarkably, matched the dress she had purchased earlier in the day.

Now, she was standing in front of Maura's door, wearing both the dress and shoes, hair done in a style she knew Maura like, waiting. She was tired of the games. It was now or never.

The door opened, and there was Maura, haloed by the half-light that barely shone from the direction of the television. She was not nearly so dressed-up as Jane, who for once looked like she should be strutting down a Paris runway, while Maura was relatively understated in black leggings and a flowy faux-wrap shirt in silvery pearl grey silk. She paused, one hand on the door frame as she took in the extremely pleasant surprise. Her stomach wrenched. "I thought you weren't going to wear that for Joe Grant," she said lightly as she stepped backward to let Jane inside.

"I wasn't, and," Jane stepped in, leaning toward Maura as she did so. "I didn't." She stopped, facing the doctor who was still holding the door. "I wore it for you." She smiled, eyes falling down, as they so often did, to Maura's lips. "Do you like it?"

"You're breathtaking," Maura replied, proving once again that she couldn't lie: her breath _was_ short. "You look incredible." Belatedly she remembered to close the door behind Jane, then just stood there, caught flatfooted and staring.

A genuine smile broke across Jane's dark features. "So are you," she whispered before turning and making her way to the guest bedroom.

Maura's head tipped for a moment in puzzlement, and then she followed her best friend into the guest room. "Jane? Jane, what's going on? Why are you going in there? Don't you want…?" But she couldn't figure out what to ask, what to offer. Want a drink? No, her breath smelled of wine already. Want to sit down? No, she'd have done that if she wanted. Want to come to my room instead? No, apparently not. What had Maura missed?

"I want a lot of things," Jane countered as she dropped her bag on the ground in its usual spot. "But, I thought I'd at least put this somewhere that I could find it later." She sauntered back to the doctor. "Now, I'm all dressed up, and I had to rush from Grant," her eyes crinkled in slight disgust, "before I could eat. Do you have any suggestions on what I could eat around here?" She stopped just a foot away from the other woman. "Or, would you rather let me go," she crossed her arms in a defiant gesture, "let me find something on my own and come back?"

Maura stood stock still for a moment, then took a step back and began apologizing. "I'm sorry I called so early and you didn't get to enjoy your dinner. You did say I should call you fifteen minutes into your date, but maybe you meant fifteen minutes into eating instead of fifteen minutes after you were due to arrive at the restaurant. I, I have the makings of a beautiful chicken Caesar salad. Let me just whip that up. I haven't eaten yet, either."

Amusement in Jane's dark eyes, she reached for the doctor, grabbing her by the wrist, stopping her. "Oh no, we're not doing this again." She stepped closer so that their bodies just barely brushed front-to-front, but she didn't release Maura's wrist. "First Pop cut into a perfectly good moment. Then, Frankie called for something, and then it was Korsak calling on a case. Then, it was Frost at the gun range. Then, Ma this afternoon." She leaned down so that her eyes were more level with Maura's. "I'm not letting _you_ interrupt us. I'm tired of the interruptions, aren't you?"

Maura might have been able to take her wrist out of the taller woman's grip, might have stopped herself from leaning into the taller woman's body, might have interrupted the recitation of how they'd spent the last two weeks trying and failing to connect. She might have turned away, headed for the kitchen to prepare them a salad to share, asked for details of Jane's 'date' with Joe Grant.

She might have, but she didn't. Instead she lifted slightly onto tiptoe, as if she were wearing her favorite pair of heels instead of barefoot, and tilted her chin up, presenting soft, juicy lips less than an inch from Jane's. _God help whoever interrupts this time,_ she swore with the last drop of coherent thought she possessed, and arched her back just slightly, like a peacock elongating his spine to spread his feathers in mating display. "Yes," she whispered, gone hoarse and dry in the mouth. Finally, a really good reason to say _yes._

Eyes dark, hand tightly gripping Maura's wrist, Jane closed the distance, placing an unexpectedly delicate kiss on the offered lips. Using her free hand, she pulled the smaller woman closer, helping hold her up as the kissed deepened, hand tightly gripping Maura's wrist. Jane closed the distance placing a kiss on the offered lips.

Though it seemed impossible, Maura's body pushed towards Jane in an effort to get closer. Their breasts squished between them, flat stomachs met, pelvises tilted. Maura's hand, the one not captured in Jane's gently commanding grasp, pulled at the small of Jane's back, ran up her spine to her neck and back down; but the other moved not at all as Maura enjoyed the sensation of being held firmly in place without feeling trapped in the least. _She wants me right where I am,_ her mind noted with elation, followed quickly by, _I'm not going anywhere that she doesn't take me._

Yet she didn't feel passive, nor did she act it. Her deep but quick breaths and tiny noises of willingness coupled with the subtle movements of her body to give, not just compliance, but active participation. It was at her own initiative that she moved backwards until her own back pressed against the hallway wall, pulling Jane with her with that one hand, little mewls escaping her throat between and sometimes during each kiss.

As Maura's back made contact with the wall, Jane pulled back just long enough to say, "No one's interrupting us tonight. I made sure of it." She pushed in, flattening their bodies against each other, stealing another kiss for the willing lips of the woman in her grasp. "Tonight is all ours."

Jane's words brought an involuntary pelvic tilt response from Maura, and one toned calf lifted and dragged itself up the back of Jane's leg. "Mm, ours," she echoed to show she was listening, then abandoned coherent speech almost entirely. Then she was all softness and generosity, her body welcoming and pliant, patient and feverishly hot.

* * *

A phone was ringing, and Jane was certain she had turned both hers and Maura's phone off. Maura! She slowly opened her eyes to see the woman in question still sleeping peacefully where she was snuggled against the detective's side. Jane sighed. It was her phone, and she recognized the ring tone. It was her mother. "Really?" She quietly grumbled trying to decide what to do. She was reluctant to move and disturb Maura. She had no desire to leave the comfort of Maura's large, cushy bed. Plus, getting up meant having to find something to put on. It also meant having to find her cell, which she was certain was in her purse. She was fairly certain that had landed in the hallway at some point. However, she also knew her mother would continue to call until Jane returned the call or answered the phone. "I should have told her not to bother me this morning, too." She sighed.

Maura lay splayed out beneath where Jane had been sleeping, naked as the day she was born, with a soft smile decorating her full lips. The sound of Jane's phone hadn't disturbed her a bit, but the siren call of that sex-choked voice, still husky and low in the morning light, did cause her to roll towards Jane, hands outstretched. "Ignore it?" she recommended hopefully, but suspected it wouldn't work, and so she sat up slowly, rubbing sleep from her eyes. "No… Okay. Answer it, then come back to bed?"

"It's Ma. You know she'll just keep calling." Jane slid out of the bed, reaching for a shirt. Realizing that she had been wearing the dress, she grunted, shrugged, and shuffled off as she was to the hallway. She came back into the room with the phone in her hand. "She's called 6 times already. I bet she thinks I'm in the hospital or something." With a sigh, she slid back into the bed, settling against the headboard as she returned the call. "Ma, it's nine in the morning. What's wrong?"

_"Jane, you didn't answer. I was starting to worry!"_ Angela's voice was loud enough to be heard through the phone's small earpiece. _"Why didn't you answer?"_

"Because we were asleep," Maura replied _sotto voce_, her voice muffled halfway as if the phone was held up to her own ear instead of Jane's. She could hear Angela almost that well, anyway.

"I was asleep."

_"You were sleeping? You never sleep! Are you sick? Do I need to come over?"_

"Definitely not," came Maura's quiet answer.

"No, I'm at Maura's, and I'm fine." She rolled her eyes, amused by Maura's 'assistance'.

_"Maura's? You were sleeping at Maura's? Jane, sweetie, I thought you went out with that nice Grant boy. What happened?"_

Still half-asleep, Maura nevertheless was having fun. "She wanted cannoli instead of steak."

"I decided I like the nice Isles girl better," she deadpanned, winking at the sleepy eyed woman next to her.

_"You what? Jane, what are you saying?"_ This time Maura didn't have a smart-alecky answer, preferring instead to roll over onto her back, which was all kinds of interesting because the sheets were down around waist-level, and trail the nearest hand lazily over Jane's arm and thigh.

"I'm saying that it's still early, I had a long night, and I'm going to get some more sleep. I see you tonight to pick up Jo Friday, okay?" Despite herself, the detective was smiling like an idiot.

_"I... wait, no! Jane Rizzoli, you tell your mother what you're doing_ right now_!"_

"You sure you want to know?" Her voice was playful.

Maura's eyes started to open more fully. "Give me the phone," she suggested in a low, mischievous murmur. "_I'll_ tell her."

_"Jane..."_

"I'm in Maura's bed, looking at her while I'm on the phone with you."

_"Are you telling me that you... So, you and _Maura_... Jane, this isn't the kind of thing you tell someone over the phone."_

"Well, you _asked_ over the phone. Don't ask if you don't want to know. So, do I need to come get Jo now and say my final goodbyes or what?" She reached down to pull the top sheet up, covering everything from the waist down.

_"What? No! No, of course not. It's just a shock, that's all. I think I'm going to need some time to think about this." Her mother paused for a beat. "Well, at least you're dating a doctor,"_ she mumbled. _"Come by tonight, and we'll talk, as a family. Bring Maura. I'll cook something."_

Surprise shot through Jane's face. "Um, okay."

_"Talk to you later. Bye, sweetie."_

Jane placed her phone on the side table. "My mother never ceases to surprise me," she said, her voice full of shock.

Maura smiled as she reached for Jane, hands already feeling the need to have that stunning skin under them. "Meanwhile, unless you'd like to go back to sleep, I think _I_ could surprise you, too." Her kiss was full of promise, but she still managed to chuckle at her friend's, now lover's, expression. "Oh, Jane. Did you think you would _always_ be the aggressor?"

"I'm not complaining," Jane fired back, smirk firmly planted on her face as she leaned back allowing the doctor to do what she would.


End file.
